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On Saturday, August 12, more than 1200 people filled the main hall at a Chicago local of the International Union of Operating Engineers, for a farewell rally for longtime Palestine rights activist Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh, a longtime Chicago community leader who was tortured and sexually assaulted by the Israeli military in 1969, was charged in 2013 for a purported immigration violation. Odeh had fought the violation, but with the prospects of a fair trial unlikely during a Trump administration, Odeh accepted a plea deal requiring the renouncement of her U.S. citizenship and leaving the United States.

Before her departure, Chicago activists organized an Honor Rasmea event. The standing-room-only event featured presentations from Angela Davis, the musical group Rebel Diaz, and from Rasmea Odeh herself. See photos here.

On Thursday, August 17th, 2017, Odeh reported to a Detroit court with more than 150 supporters to attend a sentencing hearing. Odeh's planned to read a statement to the court, but she was interrupted three times by the presiding judge who disallowed Odeh's statement. Read Odeh's intended final statement.

From the newswire: "Chicago Independent Television (CITV), the monthly television series of Chicago Indymedia, is going on hiatus effective July 2017.

"CITV debuted in January 2004 and has produced 120 half-hour episodes in its thirteen-and-a-half years pre-hiatus production run. Chicago Access Network Television, CAN TV, has been a broadcast partner with CITV for its entire pre-hiatus production run. In 2005, Free Speech TV joined as an additional broadcast partner and has been airing episodes on national satellite television on both DirecTV and Dish Network. Episodes are also posted to YouTube and to the Internet Archive." Read more.

In the course of doing so, the CTU has ventured into murky legal waters by staging a strike that may be illegal, getting sued in the process. (Rarely do American unions strike when such strikes could be illegal.) The union has referred to such charges as "bogus" and has continued to seek funding and justice for Chicago schools and Chicago children.

Student protesters and allies stopped a Chicago rally for demagogic Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before it began. The rally, scheduled for Friday, March 11, 2016 at the UIC Pavilion, faced a diverse opposition both inside and outside.

Student organizers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, about 60 in all, organized two protests: one inside the pavilion where nearly a thousand opponents congregated, and a second protest outside, starting with a brief rally at the UIC East Campus, followed by march to the pavilion. An estimated 3000 to 8500 people took part in the outdoors protest.

Those protesting Trump reflected the diverse variety of people whom Trump openly insulted in his public statements: one survey listed "student groups including the Young Democrats, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Black Student Union, [the] Muslim Student Association, and Mexican Students of Aztlan." Other listed Chicago groups who took part included "Black Lives Matter – Chicago, Black Youth Project 100, We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Immigrant Youth Justice League, along with many Chicago Teachers Union members, and others from the local Latino community."

Protesters have faced expulsion at Trump events in the past. But the much larger number of protesters inside the UIC Paviliion, comprising perhaps an eighth to a third of all the attendees, would be too large to try to remove. Hence, Trump stopped the rally. The Chicago Police Department never recommended a cancellation, and neither the Chicago police nor the UIC police reported a security problem.

As commenter Bill Chambers wrote: "This is the first time that a Trump rally was cancelled before it even started because of widespread protest. It will very likely not be the last. Now we know there are two things Donald Trump is afraid of – Megyn Kelly[,] and the people of Chicago."

A government whistblower's tip and a year-long campaign by a law professor and two independent journalists to retrieve the dash-cam video of the shooting of a black teenager by Chicago police has led to the highly-publicized release of the video. The video has spurred ongoing protests that have rocked Chicago and the Chicago political establishment, brought murder charges against the offending officer, and claimed the job of Chicago's police superintendent.

One week after the release of the Laquan McDonald video, Emanuel fired Superintendent McCarthy. Alvarez faces a primary election in March 2016, and has laid blame squarely on Emanuel. Emanuel has been heatedly fending off calls to resign. (Chicago has no impeachment protocol for its elected officials, absent a criminal conviction.) Calls for a federal probe into Chicago's police are growing.

Chicago activist Rasmea Odeh, who was jailed and convicted on bombing charges that she says she confessed to via torture and sexual assault, is appealing her conviction at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Odeh, along with many supporters, feels that she was targeted because of her support for Palestine.

Residents of Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood have struggled for years to halt and reverse the neoliberal assault against the open-enrollment Dyett High School. A Request for Proposals process for Dyett, whose own rules were violated by Chicago Public Schools (CPS), was the proverbial last straw. In response, twelve activists launched a liquid-only hunger strike on August 17, 2015, not to conclude until a number of demands for reopening and restoring the school are met.

Officialdom's response has been lukewarm: Mayor Emanuel agreed to a meeting with Dyett 12 activists, and was chased off the stage of a budget hearing by activists. On September 3, 2015, CPS announced that Dyett will reopen as an open-enrollment, arts-themed high school. The Dyett 12 have rejected the proposal, saying the proposal doesn't fulfill public demands, and have vowed to continue the hunger strike.